


nobody throws away a perfectly good baby like that without a reason

by scuttlesworth



Category: Superman (Comics)
Genre: Gen, Parenthood, mothers and sons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-24
Updated: 2013-06-24
Packaged: 2017-12-16 01:25:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/856193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scuttlesworth/pseuds/scuttlesworth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clark Kent, as a baby, is not an easy thing for a mother to handle. Mrs. Kent reads science fiction. It helps, a bit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	nobody throws away a perfectly good baby like that without a reason

It wasn't their field. That's what makes her feel like a thief. Ridiculous, after everything is said and done; the fact that it wasn't their field that bothers her most. Spaceship, baby, aliens, and it's the technicality that worries her? Mrs. Kent, you are a special kind of fool. (A childish part of her brain whispers: finders keepers, losers weepers. And he is found, found, found.) 

It's dark and late when they get him home, cradled in her arms, her head tucked over his tiny body protectively. They step into the silent entry of their silent home, the porch-light and hall-light all that greets them. Her husband is worried, she can see it. Worried by so many things. She cradles the tiny form and knows it's right. Already knows some other mother gave this up, mourned, wept over him. She can't leave him to the police, and she can't let that other mother down. So she looks at her husband and says, make it right. 

He sighs and nods. Heads back out into the night, and she watches him go, get the truck, try and figure out a way to get that damn ship into the back of it all by himself before dawn and other people's prying eyes drive past and spot it. He'll be tired tomorrow. She'll make it up to him. Pot roast and sex. And he’ll come around, once the little mite gets bigger. Starts getting interesting. He’s always wanted a son. It’s a secret that sits in his eyes when he thinks she’s not looking, that makes his smiles and touches difficult some days. Soon there will be no more of that. He’ll come around. 

She needs things for the baby. Formula of some kind. Diapers. Blankets. A crib. Babies need things, lots of things. For now, she grabs the afghan off the back of the couch and heads to the kitchen. There's milk in there. It's not enough, but for one night, a little fresh milk won't hurt. She hopes. He's an alien; what if he gets sick from it? So many doubts, but nothing to be done about it. 

 

 

He's so quiet, so still. For days he sleeps and blinks and barely eats, just lies on the blanket in the sun, on her lap, on her shoulder. He doesn't seem to sicken. He doesn't cry. Then he sort of wakes up, and it gets bad. 

He's crying. It's the first time since he crashed. Landed. Got rescued. A normal baby cry, and it terrifies her. His not crying terrified her too, but this sudden change- is he ill? She's been reading everything she could find at the library about babies - Maureen the librarian is looking at her sideways. Could it be croup? Whooping cough? Is he jaundiced? Can an alien baby even get jaundice? She reaches for him, gathers him into her arms. He swings a tiny baby arm out and it connects with her sternum. There is a cracking noise. 

She does not drop him. She can't breathe, but he's more important than her breath. She stumbles over to the sofa, sets him down on it and kneels there, half hunched over, struggling to get air into her lungs. It stabs with pain on each inhale. 

She doesn't know how long she's locked into that before the mister gets home, but when he sees her kneeling there he rushes over. "Hospital," she wheezes. He doesn't ask questions. 

The ER does ask. She grimaces. "fell on the kitchen floor carrying a casserole dish," she lies in writing, straight shame convincing the doc. The pills make the pain better. Only cracked, they say, patting her on the shoulder. She's a lucky woman. She nods. She is indeed. (She will never say he hurt her, not to anyone, ever. Her whole life past this point she lies about this one thing; and although the mister knows, sees, she'll lie even to him. To his face.) 

 

"He has to go," her husband says.  
"He stays," she replies.  
"I can't lose you."  
"Then be nearby when I hold him," she answers, practically. Babies have to be held. He's a baby. She can't not hold him. Still. It takes all her willpower to croon softly, sternum twinging even through the drugs, and reach out to lift him up again. Jonathan watches, brow furrowed, struggling.

This is a thing she has wanted for so long. He gave up on the dream of a child for the sake of loving her; now this strange, dangerous little miracle comes into their lives. Burden, blessing, baby. 

They make it right with the law. Dead cousin, unexpected gift on the doorstep. Forged letter, understanding sheriff as they describe their secret shame - the cousin did drugs, got knocked up, left. Overdosed in another city. There’s the stuff that came with the baby, artfully wrapped in a crumpled week-old Daily Planet. The legal wheels grind slowly, but no-one else claims him. They do not say, no-one ever will; but no-one ever does, all the same. 

For that first year, all her reading is about babies. She starts out with humans, then stretches to other mammals - the great apes are a logical step. Chimpanzees, gorillas. (two cracked fingers and a bruised shoulder). Bonobos make her eyes go wide. Good gracious, the things you learn at her age. But there’s still so much she doesn’t understand, and gradually her reading searches wides. Cats are no mystery, living on a farm; but giraffes (one tiny missing patch of hair, another cracked finger), and elephants (replace three floorboards and a cabinet), and wombats (new crib. can we maybe weld it from steel?). Kangaroos and armadillos (patch the hole in the wall and two stitches on her forehead), then on and on - hummingbirds, sharks, geckos, horseshoe crabs (Little bastard’s strong. Honey, don’t say that word where he can hear it. For all we know aliens don’t have a concept of marriage like we do. And hold still while we put your shoulder back.) So many motherhoods. It seemed everything gave birth except herself. 

It never quite answers her questions. He eats, yes, but more than that he loves the sun. Like a plant, she thinks, and they install skylights in his room. (one broken collarbone, one torn earlobe). He's getting energetic. He sleeps, he poops (and isn't that a treat; cloth diapers rapidly become the only practical solution.) He crawls (put down the chair, dear, please) and cries and laughs and laughs. 

The day she finds him outside beyond the fenceline, crawling determinedly towards the bull in the paddock - and he cries and reaches, and she’s hard pressed to pull his tiny grasp from the grass. The grass comes with. Thank all that exists for his sweet nature; he’s learned not to kick at her so swiftly, for a babe. That day, though she holds him and her heart hammers while he snivels at not getting to pet the giant snorting thing, she knows she needs more. 

She ventures into the science fiction section like a man going into a porn store. Her coat is clutched tight, her purse by her side. This is the domain of a set of people she doesn’t know, a strangeness in the world - whose minds come up with such twisted things? Well, her world is stranger than she ever imagined. Maybe these people can help her now. Maybe someone’s imagined this, knows what to do. She has to try. 

The covers are obscene. The colors, the images, the art - she can’t imagine learning anything useful from these books, all breasts and phallic ships, desolate landscapes and insectoid aliens. Stubbornness sticks in her throat. There must be something. She needs help from somewhere. 

There’s a boy by the window, reading. She approaches, clears her throat. He blinks, looks up. Comes back from wherever he was. She smiles, tentative; he scrambles to his feet. “Mrs Kent.” Deferential. She has no idea what his name is; didn’t know she should know him. After an excruciating moment, his name comes. 

“Tommy?” Mrs. Cooper’s son, tenth grade, skinny. Thoughtful, always at the back of the room. He nods, and she’s glad she got his name right, at least. “I was wondering - “ she glances over at the rack. Sci-Fi, it reads. Shortened words, a language she can’t navigate. “I’m looking for a book, and I don’t know how to find it. A science fiction book. You read these; can you help?” A simple request. She holds her breath for derision, scorn, amazement, suspicion. What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this. 

Surprise is there on his face, yes, but also delight. And no questions. Well - no ones she’s worried about. “Oh! Sure! What kind?” His face is hopeful. No-one must ask him about this, she thinks, feeling guilty. Wonders if in this whole town he’s the only one who reads these books. Surely not; the covers are old, worn. She feels guilty for asking him under false pretenses, so to speak. She’s not actually as interested in this topic as he is. Not for the same reasons, anyways. 

“Something with, um, mothers. And children,” she says helpfully. His face falls into a frown. He glances up at her, worried. 

“There’s not much like that, Mrs. Kent,” he says apologetically. “It’s mostly, um, adventures.” 

“Nothing?” her disappointment is clear. He shakes his head, looking crushed; he’s let her down. she tries on a smile, to take the sting away. Feels a failure. His face clears with an abrupt shift. 

“Maybe,” he says. “There’s something. I haven’t read it yet, but maybe.” He drops his book (carefully, the page stays open) and bolts to the rack. Turns it, scanning. Comes back with a book. “It’s new,” he says holding it out. The cover is less than promising - a boy on a giant bird (emu? No, too strange) with a tiny dragon hovering over his shoulder. The title - oh. Yes. She feels a great weight lift. 

She smiles, and Tommy smiles back. She reaches out to shake his hand; startled, he accepts. Little man, she thinks, proudly. “Thank you.” Her vehemence might make him blink, but the weight he’s lifted off her shoulders is immense. 

Maureen lifts an eyebrow, but she’s ready with a serene smile. “For the mister,” she says mildly, and Maureen snorts. 

“Men never do outgrow these sorts of things,” Maureen says, and although her face wryly agrees, it sparks a little ember of anger in Mrs. Kent’s heart. 

Later, in bed, he raises an eyebrow at her reading choice. She sniffs. Librarians and husbands, she says firmly, shouldn’t judge. He laughs a low rumble deep in his chest, and she tucks herself in beside him and reads. 

 

 

It was not a reassuring book. She peers doubtfully at her crawling son two days later and wonders at her own motivations. But no; she knows her own mind. That’s not it. It does make her think, though. New thoughts. Different, distracting thoughts, while she hangs the laundry in the sun. 

She brings the book back. Emboldened, she studies the spinning rack with a scowl. There must be something helpful here.

She reads about Mars as it was imagined, as it is, as it might be in the future; she reads about robots, and aliens, and monsters. People fall through time; worlds are made from rings and spheres and clouds of gas. She is often shocked, frequently mystified, and the mister makes snorting, wordless comments on some of the book covers at bed-time. Nonetheless, she catches him with his feet propped up with one of her books in his hands when he should be repairing the tractor, and sneaks away so as not to disturb him. 

Some of the books have theories in them that can’t come from whole cloth. She asks. Tommy is happy to discuss the origins of things. In stilted, adult to child discussions in the library, they discuss philosophy, and religion, and the nature of the universe. She starts going wider with her reading. Older books, bound in boring covers with greek faces on them. A book about motorcycles. Books about thinking. Books full of help she can’t use and ideas that she can’t forget. 

None of the books tell her quite what is going on. None of the theories they expound are designed to help her sleep at night. But, when her boy hears things from miles away and cries, or sees things he shouldn’t, she has arms to hold him and a shirt to dry his tears, and she has words to call him back from the night. The mister, he’s got words too. His hands are gentle when he shows their boy how to hold a wrench, how to have self-control, how to know when something is too much. 

She was right, she thinks, watching them with their heads bent together. They got closer as Clark got older. When he started to follow her husband around and pester him about things like cows and chickens and hay, when they could talk a bit. Not about anything directly, but about big things disguised as little things: chicken for dinner, seeds in the soil. Summer sun and summer storms. She was right. 

 

She’s there at Tommy’s graduation. He asked her to come, and she did, her and the mister standing there in the back clapping with the other parents. After, he asked her to come by the house, and she did that too. It was a sort of practice, his leaving for college. Practice for when her own boy left. She headed home that day with two big boxes stuffed full of books. For your boy, because I can’t take them to college, Tommy said, and she nodded. Thoughtful of you, she replied, and he grinned. 

She goes through them late at night. There, names she recognizes. Asimov, Heinlein, Niven, LeGuin; some she’s read, others she hasn’t. She sets them on shelves in Clark’s room, to wait for him to grow up and read them. To prepare him, she thinks, for the big questions. The ones he’ll need to ask, and the ones he’ll need to answer. Names to conjure a future by, she thinks, touching his hair softly, looking down at his sweet little fingers on the cover. He grows so fast now, like a cornstalk. 

Someday, she thinks, leaving his room. Someday, maybe you’ll go back to the stars and bring our stories with you. If it comes, you tell them we dream big. For ourselves, for our children, for everything.

**Author's Note:**

> I watched "Man of Steel" the other day and we're just going to have to pretend it never happened. Except for the way it made me think of Martha Kent might have been, who is nothing like the woman in the movie, all of which is here.


End file.
